


Your Heart to Mine

by wynnebat



Series: Knots in the Red String [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Friendship, Getting Together, Guide Carl Powers, M/M, Minor Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Moving On, Red String of Fate, Sentinel Sebastian Moran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 21:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Carl builds a life after Jim. Eventually, his new Sentinel comes along.





	Your Heart to Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to be a short ficlet, honestly. Title from:
> 
> It's a long dark highway and a thin white line  
> Connecting baby, your heart to mine  
> We're runnin' now but darlin' we will stand in time  
> To face the ties that bind  
> The ties that bind
> 
> \- Bruce Springsteen's [The Ties That Bind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdhLhWLmeAE)  
> 

Carl's bondstring unraveled the day after he woke up in the hospital. It wasn't surprising, expected even, and definitely wanted, but the sight of wrist bare for the first time in his life shocked him anyway. If one betrayed their bondmate—in a huge way, not just a little lie—the bond would let the two separate from one another. He was suddenly cut off from Jim's emotions, even as distant as they usually were. Anger had been the last thing he'd felt. And then nothing. Right before his eyes, the red string slipped off from his wrist and disappeared into thin air. It was as though he'd never even been connected to Jim at all, making everything meaningless and strange.

 _Why couldn't you just like me?_ kept ringing through his head. Carl knew he wasn't the best kid on the block—not the smartest, definitely—but his grades were alright and he liked to have fun and he could've been the best damn Guide in the world. His parents were quick to assure him that it was all Jim, that Jim was crazy, that it wasn't Carl's fault, but that didn't make him feel much better. He and Jim were bondmates: two sides of the same coin. If Jim was crazy…

Carl didn't feel crazy. Mostly he just felt sad and confused. No one blamed him. Not even Sherlock, who'd liked Jim. John didn't blame him one bit, since John had been Jim's next target.

"He didn't deserve you," John said, weeks after, when Carl's parents had dropped him off at Sherlock's for a couple hours. It was the first time they'd let him out of their sight except for school and swimming.

"I know," Carl muttered, because that was what everyone was telling him. But he wasn't sure he did. He knew not everyone was happy with their bond, but he'd thought… He'd thought it would be good.

"Listen to John, he's good with people," Sherlock agreed. "And stop blaming yourself. It's annoying."

"How'd you deduce that?"

"Your face. And your emotions are stifling."

" _Your_ emotions are dumb."

"I'm going to ignore both of you forever if you keep at it," John told them sternly. "Now, we have a ten step healing schedule for you."

"You sound like my therapist."

"Step one is learning to ride a horse, because I can't believe you've never ridden," Sherlock said.

"I live in London, where would I— actually, never mind, you guys can be my therapist all you want if this is therapy."

"Horses are therapeutic creatures," John told him.

Carl was pretty sure that was bullshit, but he didn't mind.

He wasn't sure if John and Sherlock really wanted to be his friends or if they just felt guilty and wanted to make him feel better, but he figured that if he got to ride a horse, it didn't really matter either way.

And when Sherlock and John kept inviting him over again and again, he decided that guilt couldn't be that much of a factor, since this was all too much effort to let go of a guilty conscience.

Knowledge of what happened eventually got out, but his name wasn't allowed to be published, and his family wasn't officially connected in any way. The kids at school created a lot of rumors to explain his week-long absence. Carl's favorite was the Olympics training camp rumor, but the almost got offed by a serial killer one was slightly closer.

He wore long sleeves and kept his hands down, never quite knowing when anyone would bring bondstrings into focus and notice that his bond had vanished. People's minds would lead to his bondmate dying, not the truth, but he still didn't want to think of it.

 _I'm not ashamed,_ he told himself, but it a lie. He kind of was. Jim didn't think he was good enough to be his Guide. Even though Carl didn't want to be the kind of Guide that Jim wanted, he still wished he had been.

His parents put him in therapy. Lots of therapy.

Three months after Jim—and it felt like that was what it was always going to be now, his life split into before and after Jim—a new bondstring replaced the one he'd lost. Carl didn't even see it grow in; one day he simply woke up and found it looped around his wrist. The bondstring looked exactly like his old one: red string, a slight glow, both real and not. He was struck with fear for a couple minutes that it would lead to Jim again and he'd never be able to get away from him, but his heart settled down eventually.

Carl unfocused his sight and didn't look at the string for a month.

(He wondered if Jim had gotten a new bondmate. He wondered who it was. He tried not to be jealous, because he hated Jim, but there was also something inside him that still insisted they were paired. Jim and Carl, Carl and Jim, forevermore.)

His parents were ecstatic at the news once he finally told them. They offered to help him find his bondmate if the bondmate was anywhere in the country—if he was farther, it would take much longer to find someone, especially when all they could do was follow the direction the string led them in—but Carl quickly said no.

"Jim was an anomaly," his therapist promised him.

"Wouldn't you like to meet him or her?" his parents asked. "Just to see?"

"I don't like people either," Sherlock told him when the issue came up. "My vote is always for not bothering with all that. Also if you find the next one, give me his name and I'll get into my mom's work computer and run a background check on him."

"And I'll tell Sherlock everything I see and smell and hear about him so that he can deduce him better," John promised. "Not that we think he'll be like Jim. At all."

"Of course not. It's completely statistically improbably. I mean, it's possible that you're just highly compatible with certain types of people—"

"He means smart people."

"I mean dangerous people, but maybe John's right. If he's smart, you definitely need to let me meet him so that I can prove he's not as smart as he thinks he is."

"I'm not going to find him—or her—for a while," Carl said, tracing the line of his wrist. "Maybe ever. If they want to find me, they can. But I think I've had enough of Sentinels. Except for you, John, of course."

"I'm sure Sherlock can stand sharing me until you find your bondmate. It's for a good cause."

"I don't care about good causes," Sherlock muttered. But he quickly added, "But you're alright. We'll work out a schedule. I expect you to keep it and not vanish for some stupid reason like not wanting to interfere in our bond."

"I don't know how I ever thought you were mean," Carl told him.

Sherlock made a face, but John just laughed.

 

*

 

Carl half expected his Sentinel to show up on his doorstep in the weeks following the bond appearing. The thought filled him with a dash of excitement, but mostly just dread. But dread was a hard emotion to keep up over weeks and months, so as time passed and his Sentinel didn't arrive, the issue slipped to the very back of Carl's mind.

He and Jim had found each other extraordinarily early, mostly because Jim had determinedly followed their bondstring, taking buses and taxis and walking until he finally reached Carl's home. London was huge, but it wasn't a continent; Jim hadn't had to go through extraordinary lengths to find him. Their bondstring had always been very active as they moved throughout various parts of the city, pointing north and south and every which way.

Carl's new bondstring barely moved at all for the first couple years of its existence. It pointed somewhere east, and unless his bondmate lived in London but just didn't move at all, Carl guessed his bondmate was somewhere on the continent. That was mostly why Sentinels and Guides didn't meet each other until they grew up; it took time and resources to track down one's bondmate. And although bonds generally brought bondmates together naturally, some people didn't want to wait in case for them that happened when they were eighty years old.

But even if Carl wanted to, his parents didn't have the time, money, or inclination to spend ages looking in many different countries for his bondmate. If his bondmate was Carl's age—which wasn't certain, since either his bondmate was a baby and Carl was his first bond, or he was older and on his second or possibly even third bond—then he probably had just as few resources to look for Carl.

Or maybe his new Sentinel just didn't want to find him. Maybe he'd already met his first bondmate and preferred them over Carl, despite whatever happened. Or maybe his bondmate didn't believe bonds should matter in the modern day. Some people were pretty adamant about that sort of thing.

It didn't matter, anyway. Carl had school and friends and swimming.

Eventually, he didn't have swimming anymore, because while he'd liked to do it in school, the university swim team wanted too much of his time. Carl wanted to graduate near the top of his class with a biology degree, and spending all his time at the gym wouldn't lead him there.

("Biology," Sherlock had scoffed. "John's corrupted you."

"It's a pity he couldn't get to you, too," Carl agreed.)

And then after he got his master's in education, there wasn't school. There was work, though, both at an elementary school and shifts in the spirit world, where he educated the younger brats and led one orientation session a week.

Through it all, his friends stayed. They stayed completely insane, but they stayed.

By his mind-twenties, fifteen years out from the crap that happened in his childhood, Carl began toying with the idea of finding his Sentinel. It was about time, and in the past decade, his bondstring had begun to rotate in direction often. Either his Sentinel took quite a few flights around the world or he'd moved somewhere close to Carl, who'd stayed in the same city he'd grown up in. Carl himself had gotten enough therapy to practically be able to become a therapist himself. That and simply the passing of time had allowed him to let go of the past. He assumed it was the same with Jim; whether he was still in an institution or a reformed man or dead, Carl didn't feel any urge to find out.

Still, there was always yet another thing to do, pushing the issue back towards the end of his mental to do list. He figured that if he took too long, his Sentinel would probably take the initiative and find him eventually anyway.

 

*

 

It turned out they'd find each other. Standing in a clearing in the spirit world, similar to the one he himself had first found himself in when he'd meditated into the spirit world for the very first time, Carl waited for the newcomers to arrive.

Feeling someone's emotions behind him, Carl turned around. "Hi, my name's Carl Powers, today's orientation leader. Are you new to the spirit world or just to the local hub?"

He saw the man first: tall, handsome, blue-eyed, with a broad figure that Carl immediately found himself attracted to. He looked to be a couple years older than Carl, though he found it hard to tell. It was only after all that, that Carl glanced down at the bondstring tied to the man's wrist. It was pointed straight toward Carl and instead of fading into the air, it connected to the one tied around his wrist.

"Oh," said Carl, rubbing his wrist with his other hand and almost unable to look away from the connected bondstring between them. His wrist had been smaller the last time around, a boy's instead of a man's. "Hi."

"Hello," said the man, and his face reflected the same surprise Carl felt, though he was breaking out into a smile. "I'm Sebastian Moran. I think I'm your Sentinel."

Carl could admit that the day's orientation session was probably one of the worst he'd done, but none of the people in the group seemed to mind. His attention, despite all he said about the spirit world, was on the man who walked beside him. Sebastian Moran, his Sentinel. Sebastian's emotions were addictive; he was so excited to have found his Guide, and Carl reveled in the easiness his emotions came through. Heart in his throat, he thought, _he isn't Jim_. And it was actually so easy to believe. Sebastian's emotions seemed to match his actions, unlike Jim's misleading aura.

When the tour finished and the group dispersed, Carl led them to sit down on a large piece of driftwood on a windy beach.

"I can't believe we've finally found each other," Carl said, unable to look away from his Sentinel's face. He was trying to memorize every inch of him, not because he thought they'd never see himself again, but because it had been so long since he'd been a part of a bond. "I didn't expect you."

"Me neither," Sebastian admitted. "I planned to find you, I promise, but I just moved to the area and thought it would take some time. And now— I'm happy. I'm just surprised, too."

"I know exactly how you feel," Carl said, grinning at the way Sebastian huffed at the pun. "I thought about looking for you a lot. I think that if we hadn't found each other in the next couple years, I would've started to look for you myself. Are you in London now?"

"Yes, I am. You too?"

"All my life." Carl felt nearly giddy at the thought of finally being so close to his Sentinel in the real world. "Where did you grow up? I'd assumed it was on the continent."

"Germany, but I've traveled all over after becoming an adult."

So that was where the sexy accent was from, Carl elected not to say. It still felt weird to have a bondmate as an adult; he remembered all these feelings the first time around, and _fuck you're so hot_ hadn't been one of the things he'd thought about Jim. It all felt so strange, talking to someone you didn't know at all but also knew on such a deep level. This man, this attractive, interesting man was Carl's, and Carl barely knew a thing about him.

"For work?"

Sebastian's emotions fluttered uncomfortably. "Mostly, yes. I worked for an international business for the better part of a decade, but my new job doesn't require me to travel much anymore."

"Will you miss it?"

Shaking his head, Sebastian said, "Maybe a bit, but not much. It was a stressful and busy job and I'll be glad to get some time to myself. What do you do?"

"I'm a teacher, both in here and in the real world. Mostly younger kids there and a hodgepodge of ages here. It's fun, keeps me from taking life too seriously and you wouldn't believe how much there is to learn about the spirit world." He was going to start in on an anecdote, but thought that he might as well rip off the band-aid now instead of later. "I had a bad experience with my first Sentinel, so I like being part of the network that tries to keep people from being idiots, adults and children alike. Am I your second match, too?"

"You are," Sebastian said. He looked away, his eyes far onto the water. "I met my first Guide when I was fourteen. We knew each other for close to a year before she died. I was— I wasn't the same, afterwards. The loss of her was the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced and for years I thought I wouldn't be able to bear getting to know my new Guide and having the same thing happen. It was selfish of me, I know—"

"Of course it wasn't," Carl couldn't help but cut in. "I could've tried to find you, too. It's not a one way street. You're my second, too. His name was—is, I'm not sure—Jim. Our bond unraveled after he tried to kill me in order to bond to another boy he'd become obsessed with."

"I'm sorry," Sebastian said, taking his hand.

"I brought the topic up. I just thought we could just get it out there, to keep it from becoming a big thing. Jim's not a secret or anything, but I rarely talk about what happened back then. It feels like a different life; I was only ten years old. We barely knew each other. What happened changed my life, but the work I do now, it's not about him. Just me."

"I'm glad you brought this up. Knowing myself, I wouldn't have said anything until I had to. I'm not in love with her anymore—and it was a teenage sort of love that might not have lasted anyway—but I often err on the side of disclosing too little instead of too much. You might have to prompt me to be more open later on, too."

"I have a lot of practice getting people to talk to me," Carl replied with a smile. His students, yes, but mostly he meant the recalcitrant cat of a person that was Sherlock Holmes. "And the Guide thing does get helpful."

"I bet it does. What should we do now?"

Carl's eyes were locked on Sebastian's. He knew there were platonic Sentinel-Guide relationships out there, as well as pairs who weren't large parts of each other's life, but that wasn't the sort of life he wanted. And if he was interpreting what he felt from Sebastian's emotions correctly, Sebastian felt the same. "Now, I ask you to dinner, and you say yes."

"Do I?"

"I'm a Guide. We know these things."

"I'll defer to your expert opinion, then," Sebastian said. "Are you any good at memorizing phone numbers?"

"Not at all, but I could try."

"My auditory memory isn't bad. If I don't call you, just google Sebastian Moran and send me a message."

"I will."

 

*

 

Second matches were often characterized as more stable, calmer matches. Both partners had lost their original bondmate and knew what to avoid doing the second time around. In a way, this was true; Carl's relationship with Sebastian wasn't anything like the rocky one he'd had with Jim. Sebastian, to his credit, wasn't a sociopath. He wasn't anything like Jim at all. They shared a couple similarities—sarcasm, quick wit, a love of being right—but Sebastian wasn't cruel in his words, and the only one he seemed to want to be better than was his past self. He was pretty into fitness and motivational talks, which Carl accepted as a weird quirk. For all that he encouraged his students to be active, he hadn't seen the inside of a gym since his swimming days.

The biggest difference between them, it was that Carl liked Sebastian in a way he'd never liked Jim. He liked dating him, liked listening to his jokes, liked learning about his past. They weren't John and Sherlock, who were involved in each other's lives in every way, working and living and sleeping together in a way that Carl called codependent and they each called needing to keep an eye on their idiot bondmate. But they were something.

And that something would have to be introduced to his friends, Carl decided a bit over a month into their bond, because otherwise his friends would never leave him alone.

At their weekly coffee and bitching about people session at the Speedy's near Sherlock and John's flat, Sherlock slammed his coffee down on the table upon arriving and said, "I've been very patient for the forty-three days since you've met your bondmate, but I've reached the end of my rope. Set up a meeting."

"Please set up a meeting. He's not been letting me get any sleep all month. It's always _I need a case_ and _I need to know_ and _why won't Carl just let me into every portion of his life_."

"That's not what I said."

"That's what you thought."

"You're already in every portion of my life," Carl said, rolling his eyes. "I just wanted to reel him in a bit so that I'd be able to find him again if you insulted him too badly."

"Please, all you'd have to do was follow your bond if you really lost him. And besides, I've promised John I'll be nice."

Carl sipped his coffee and gave him a look. "Well, if that's the case… Dinner at my place next Friday?"

Huffing, Sherlock exclaimed, "You were already planning to invite us! _Carl_."

"Great, we'll be there," John said, and there was a sharp satisfaction in his expression that reminded Carl that Sherlock wasn't the only threat to his bondmate. Between the two of them, there wouldn't be a stone in Sebastian's past that wouldn't get overturned.

And if he was honest, Carl was pretty sure it would need to be done. There was something about Sebastian that felt… not shady, exactly, but secretive. He treated Carl well, but he barely talked about his past before moving to London, only mentioning once that he had no family (Carl had immediately invited him for Christmas with his own) and that he was more interested in the future than the past. Carl wasn't completely sure that it was anything on Jim's level, but he needed to know. Trust could come afterwards.

And if Sherlock found anything in Sebastian's history worth making a scene over, then at least they were doing this at his flat instead of a restaurant.

 

*

 

Sharply-dressed and handsome, Sebastian was the first to arrive on Friday. Carl kissed him at the door, knowing Sebastian could hear every beat of his excitedly beating heart.

"I'm glad to see you," Carl said, letting him go. "Sherlock and John aren't here yet, but make yourself at home."

"Sherlock Holmes?" Sebastian said, coming to a stop just inside the flat. "You never told me you knew _Sherlock Holmes_."

Of course he hadn't; it was hard to bring the city's most talked about consulting detective into a casual conversation. "I've talked about him before. I know I must have. Actually, he was the one friend I was ranting about not knowing about Pluto."

"You definitely didn't mention his name."

"Sorry, must've slipped my mind. Don't worry about it. For all that he's famous in the papers, he's a good guy at heart. I've known him and his Sentinel, John Watson, for years." Sebastian's pinched expression still hadn't cleared, so Carl added, "You'd have met him eventually anyway. Our families celebrate the holidays together and you accepted my invitation—no take-backs for that now, by the way."

Sighing, Sebastian said, "I suppose I can't avoid the inevitable."

"You'll be fine. I know people say he's an asshole—and he is—but he's kind in his own stupid way."

"How long have you known him?"

"Fifteen years."

"Wow."

"Yeah. John beat me to knowing him only by something like four months. We were pretty tight as kids. Sherlock, John, me… and Jim, for a while."

Despite the fact that he still looked like he wanted to bolt and there was actual fear in his aura, Sebastian took Carl's hand, squeezing it gently. "It's alright."

"It is alright. It was a shitty experience, but I've moved on. And anyway, I have you now."

"You do," Sebastian said, but his emotions barely settled. It wasn't a good sign. "He's very good at his deductions, your Sherlock?"

"The best."

"Alright," Sebastian said, his lips curling up into a slight smile. "Alright."

Nervousness, some fear, but most of all acceptance. Carl could deal with that. Most people got nervous meeting Sherlock for the first time, even when they didn't have much to hide. He found that mostly people just didn't want to be embarrassed by Sherlock. And if Sebastian's secrets ran deeper than that… Well, what would happen, would happen.

They didn't have to wait long to arrive. Carl was in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the food, and Sebastian was leaning on the counter next to him and telling him about his day, when he turned his head and said, "I think they're coming up the stairs."

"What are they saying?"

"One of them is asking if he should have brought his gun."

"Yeah, that sounds like John." Carl abandoned the kitchen in favor of opening the front door. Sherlock and John weren't in sight yet, but he could hear their voices even without a Sentinel's ears now, although he couldn't make out what they were saying. Beside him, Sebastian looked apprehensive. "You'll do fine, don't worry too much."

"And it's inevitable."

"It really is," Carl replied, smiling once he caught sight of his friends climbing up the stairs. "Sherlock, John, hello. This is my boyfriend, Sebastian Moran. Sebastian, the banes of the London police force, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes."

"You make us sound like criminals. We're just consultants who know what we're doing, that's all," John said with an amicable smile. It was, Carl recognized, his meeting shady people smile. They really didn't have much faith in Carl's new Sentinel.

"You're definitely some kind of criminal," were Sherlock's first words. "Carl, you really do have a type."

"Dammit," Carl muttered. Closing his eyes and counting to five, Carl got both of them into the flat and closed the door behind himself. "All of you, into the living room."

He turned off the stove in case the discussion got long and entered the living room in the middle of Sherlock's deductions.

"—and your clothes are much too expensive for your official job title, so you have an alternate income stream, but it's not inherited—"

"I could just be a businessman—"

"Not with your address, not with your age, and you're not in the tech field or banking—"

"I could've won the lottery," Sebastian replied, huffing softly.

Carl sighed and sat down next to him, placing a hand on his knee.

For a long moment, Sebastian said nothing. And then he just asked, "So, what kind of criminal am I?"

Sherlock launched into a monologue so fast that Carl could barely follow. Some words filtered through his fast speed and Carl's mess of emotions. "Something creative— artistic— you're able to fit in easily with the upper class, although you weren't born into it— your hands, hmm—" the same hands that Carl was so very fond of "—white collar crime, definitely— you facilitated in the theft and forgery of paintings. I'm right, aren't I?"

"You're brilliant, as always," John told him. But he'd relaxed the slightest bit.

White collar crime wasn't exactly great, Carl thought, still in shock, but somewhat relieved that it could've been worse.

"Although…" Sherlock tapped his forefingers together. "I should've been using the past tense. You do have a job at Lincoln, I checked, and it's not a front for anything as far as I could tell. You've given up your life of crime. Was it for Carl?"

"I didn't know who my Guide would be. I wanted to meet them desperately for years, but I couldn't justify dragging them down with me if I was ever caught." Turning to Carl, he said, "I should've told you. If something from my past comes to haunt me, it could hurt you, too."

"I'm feeling hurt enough now," Carl said, and watched Sebastian's expression become even tenser. But despite his words, Sebastian's former occupation felt barely real, like something out of a movie. Did people really forge paintings? Was that a thing that happened in the real world? Carl was a teacher, for fuck's sake, he was the furthest you could get from someone who'd worked on the black market. "Did you ever hurt someone on the job?"

"No, never."

"What about outside of it?" John asked.

"Fistfights as a kid, but that was all. I wasn't there to hurt anyone, just to make money. And then I was good at it, so I just kept doing it until I started wanting something more. I'm on the board of a human rights nonprofit now. They do good things. Not that I was doing anything especially bad—"

Carl coughed.

"—honestly, the only people who were harmed were those who were rich enough to correct their mistake if they ever found the painting was a fake. And if they never found out, then they still had a painting they enjoyed, even if wasn't worth quite what they thought it was."

He still sounded like Carl's boyfriend. He still was; it was just that now there was a whole different dimension to him that had left Carl feeling.

Sebastian Moran, former art thief and forger.

Sebastian, who still felt like family and home and friendship and something that could one day be love. Paying close attention to Sebastian's aura, Carl asked, "Could this life—me, the right side of the law, London—make you happy?"

"You already do, so much, I promise," Sebastian said.

"He's telling the truth," Sherlock agreed.

Carl hadn't needed it, but it was good to have the confirmation. Everything in Sebastian's emotions indicated that he was happy with Carl, that he wanted to stay with him. He was panicked, scared of losing something important.

"I'm not going to turn you in or anything," Carl promised him in turn. "Neither are Sherlock or John."

Sebastian's emotions barely settled. "I would understand if you wished to break up, but if you give me another chance to—"

"You don't need another chance. You've still got your first one. I like you a lot, and honestly, I've got a pretty high tolerance for Sentinels being weird. You're not on Jim's scale at all, and you're kind and say you've changed. I think we're good."

"Carl… Thank you."

"Dinner?" Carl asked, his gaze only on Sebastian. "It probably hasn't gotten cold."

"Dinner."

"Yes, let's get on with it," Sherlock announced.

Softly, John muttered, "Don't ruin the moment!"

But it was alright. Carl was pretty sure they still had a lot more moments to look forward to down the line.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
